Day Out: St Albans

The day after our adventure into the Surrey Hills, we were up again and headed to Victoria station to return the hire car. A small getting-petrol adventure later, we caught the Tube to St Pancras, then the Thameslink out to St Albans. We had been invited out to see my friend Bri and her partner Patrick, who had just moved there earlier in the month. It was also the beginning of the Christmas market there and the lights were being turned on that evening!

We started with a lovely long wander through the markets, a nice mix of decorations and delicious food stalls. We ate and drank a lot of samples! It was a very cold day though... So we headed to the cathedral. Last time I visited St Albans, I didn't go into the cathedral as it was closed, so I was keen to see inside. It is beautiful, and very interesting. Some parts are Norman, others Victorian, and as the new times came in, they not only mended what needed fixing, but often they changed old things too. There are many paintings with faces scratched out because they were 'not right' to the next era, plaster walls with lines drawn on to make them look like bricks (that doesn't really work, by the way), and bits of the cathedral rebuilt in different styles as parts had crumbled and been fixed. It had also been extended several times, and if you get married in the cathedral, it is the longest walk down the aisle in all of Britain... You have to walk done the entire length of the cathedral, and not even in a straight line!

When we had finished admiring the cathedral, we finished off looking at the markets, then decided that a pub lunch was called for (mostly so we could sit inside and stretch out our drinks). I had a fish finger sandwich and a yummy rhubarb G&T! We spent a while in the pub, just catching up and enjoying each others company. Then we returned outside, heading to the Clock Tower to catch the lights turning on.

We didn't judge this very well in the end. We bought our tickets to climb the Clock Tower (I didn't like the stairs, they were very claustrophobic), then climbed to the top with about 10 minutes to spare. However, about 10 minutes after they were supposed to be turned on, we gave up and went back down. They were still making speeches! We went back into the markets to make a few purchases (Christmas presents and Honeycomb whisky liqueur), and by the time we came back all the lights were on! That was a little disappointing, and by this time it was 6pm, very dark and still only a few degrees above 0, so we headed home on the train for chocolate pudding in our pajamas in front of the TV. All in all, a very successful weekend!